Convert PNG to WebP — Free Online, No Upload
Drop a PNG (or a batch) into PicBrewery and get a WebP version with full transparency, generated right in your browser. Both lossless and lossy WebP are produced automatically so you can pick whichever one comes out smaller for each source.
For a deeper dive on why WebP beats PNG on bytes while matching it on transparency, see the WebP section on the formats hub.
How to convert PNG to WebP
- Open PicBrewery in any evergreen browser.
- Drag your PNG file (or several) onto the upload area. Pasting from the clipboard with Ctrl/Cmd+V also works — useful for screenshots.
- PicBrewery decodes the PNG and encodes WebP (both lossy and lossless internally) in parallel with JPEG and AVIF. The alpha channel is preserved automatically.
- Click the download icon on the WebP cell to save one file. For batches use Download all as ZIP.
Why convert PNG to WebP?
PNG is a great archival format — strictly lossless, broadly supported — but on the wire it is expensive. For typical UI graphics (icons, screenshots, diagrams) lossless WebP is 20–30% smaller than an oxipng-optimized PNG of the same image, because WebP uses a more modern predictor set and entropy coder than DEFLATE. For photo-like PNG sources (colorful screenshots, illustrations, or phone-captured photos saved as PNG by mistake), switching to lossy WebP at quality 85 cuts size by 60–80% with no visible loss and full alpha preserved.
Smaller PNGs are useful in three places: faster first-render on image-heavy UIs (logos and marketing pages), smaller PWA offline caches, and lower CDN bandwidth on retina assets that ship at 2× or 3× resolution.
Expected file-size savings
Exact numbers depend on content, but the rules of thumb are stable: lossless WebP runs 20–30% smaller than tuned PNG; lossy WebP at quality 85 on photo-like PNGs saves 60–80%. Sparse flat graphics (simple icons with a handful of colors) sometimes compress worse in WebP than in PNG-8 with a palette — PicBrewery shows both byte counts in the same row so you can pick whichever one wins.
Browser support for WebP
WebP is supported by Chrome 32+ (2014), Firefox 65+ (2019), Edge 18+,
Safari 14+ (2020 — macOS Big Sur and iOS 14) and every modern Android
browser. If you still need to support IE 11 or Safari 13, serve WebP
with a PNG fallback inside <picture> so legacy
browsers render the PNG. See
/formats/#webp for the full support
matrix.
Frequently asked questions
Does PNG to WebP preserve transparency?
Yes. WebP supports the same 8-bit alpha channel as PNG, and PicBrewery passes transparent pixels through unchanged. Both lossless and lossy WebP keep alpha, so you can pick lossless for UI graphics and lossy for photos-with-alpha without losing transparency either way.
Should I use lossless or lossy WebP for a PNG?
For UI graphics, icons, screenshots and line art — lossless WebP, which is strictly pixel-identical to the PNG but typically 20–30% smaller. For photo-like PNG sources (for example phone screenshots of photos) lossy WebP at quality 85 is dramatically smaller, often saving 60–80%. PicBrewery lets you choose under Advanced settings.
Can lossless WebP really replace PNG everywhere?
In evergreen browsers since 2020, yes. All pixels round-trip exactly, alpha is preserved, and color profiles can be embedded. The only cases where PNG still wins are deep integration with legacy tools (IE 11, ancient photo editors) and 16-bit grayscale sources — WebP is strictly 8-bit per channel.
How much smaller is WebP compared to PNG?
Lossless WebP is typically 20–30% smaller than an oxipng-optimized PNG of the same image, because WebP uses a more modern predictor set and entropy coder. Lossy WebP on photo-like PNG sources can cut size by 60–80% at quality 85 with no visible loss. Exact numbers depend on content — check the results table in PicBrewery for your files.
Does converting PNG to WebP affect colors or ICC profiles?
PicBrewery decodes the PNG to sRGB and re-encodes WebP in sRGB. Embedded ICC profiles are not carried through to keep files small. For color-critical workflows (print proofs, sRGB vs Display P3) keep the source PNG; for web delivery sRGB is what browsers render anyway.
Convert PNG to WebP now
Drop your PNGs into PicBrewery and grab the WebP versions — alpha intact, 20–30% smaller for graphics, much more for photos. Everything happens in your browser.